Virtual City a Complex Empire City Building Game for Android

Virtual City is a complex empire building game for Android. Start small, build big- the game lets you create a huge city; grow your population, boost your businesses and trade with other cities. Great graphics, careful tutorials and immersive gameplay make for a fun gaming experience that should appeal to fans of the genre.

Price: Free for tutorial levels then in-game purchase of about $5 for full title.

Pros & Cons:

The game doesn’t really tell you this, but you only get the tutorial levels for free.

Expensive.

Controls are sometimes painfully unresponsive.

Features:

The creators of Virtual City, G5, already have pedigree in the Android Market for being the developers behind popular games like Stand O’ Food and Supermarket Mania; primary colored slices of management gaming fun. Perhaps their newest title- Virtual City is the most ambitious yet.

The game is extremely typical of the genre; start quite small; establish transport lines so that one business can work with other businesses, set up bus routes, trade with other local cities, etc. Then you get on with the job of creating a sprawling metropolis of businesses, people, homes, shops and farms. This really is quite an epic game.

What initially struck me was the superb graphics. I’ve found that while some management games can be great to play but the graphics are not quite top notch. Virtual City however has relatively high quality graphics, which makes it more fun to play and gives a far more enjoyable experience. The game screen is full of bustling detail and even the tiny vehicles are rendered well.

The graphics are complimented well by the sound. The effects are rich, the music comfortable and suits the game well. All this enables a user to immerse themselves in the game, it becomes ‘your’ city and adds significant character to the gameplay.

While some elements are quite linear- you have to complete various tasks as your city builds, you do have the freedom to build where you like and upgrade your businesses as you see fit. Many games of this ilk tend to essentially be a series of accumulative tasks- requiring little thought, only patience. Virtual City is instead far more personal, and lets you build as you want to, albeit within the framework of necessary tasks.

What I did find a little spurious is the fact that the free game is actually no more than the tutorial levels, of which there are only a few. The game then prompts you to buy the full version, which is a wallet-stinging $5. Now, in my opinion, within the context of the genre, Virtual City is awesome. The full version has a cool 50 levels across 5 different settings, there are 18 different scenarios to complete and over 50 buildings- each with a different purpose and can be upgraded numerous times. There are also lots of goods to trade and transport, and lots of vehicles to create. There’s real depth here and if such games are your thing, it’s a brilliant addition for Android.

I just found this way of selling the app a little unsavoury, why not be up front about the price? Just explain that this is just a tutorial, it certainly doesn’t mention anything about having to buy the unlocked version in the Android Market overview. This takes nothing away from the game itself, but I wish such developers would just be up front about such things- users might feel a bit mislead after enjoying the game initially.

Fun Factor:

The game is stacks of fun as you gradually build you metropolis. There’s lots going on and you have to carefully monitor this as you complete various tasks.

Addictive:

Once you get stuck into the game, certainly if you get to the point where you buy the full version, this can become a real time-killer and progressively more and more addictive. Like the grandfather of these kind of accumulation games- Farmville, there’s something that really appeals to modern gamers and draws people into the environment with immersive gameplay.

Graphics:

The graphics are pretty much as good as you can get for the genre on Android, and are quite impressive. The level of detail is high and, while the colors are irrepressively bright, it all looks very smooth and beautiful.

Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:

The sound is genuinely excellent; rich with city sound effects, vehicles and movement with a sweet ambient music track in the background.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.1 out of 5)

Should you Download Virtual City? Virtual City is a fine example of the management/building app on Android. The graphics are exemplary, the sound is great and gameplay is complex, immersive and fun. The game neglects to inform potential users that this really isn’t a free game, you have to pay if you want to progress past the initial tutorial levels. This is a shame as it feels a bit dishonest. However, the game is very good and fans of the genre should definitely check it out. Obviously the game is initially free so certainly have a look to see if it floats your boat enough to buy.